Cormann concedes Coalition was 'in a more competitive position' when Turnbull knifed

By Michael Koziol & Nicole Hasham

Updated9 November 2018 — 1:15pmfirst published at 9:36am

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann - whose shift in support was crucial in the coup against former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull - has conceded the Coalition had improved its electoral position just before he and his colleagues knifed their leader.

Senator Cormann said he had not seen internal party polling showing the Coalition ahead 52 to 48 in key marginal seats - polling Mr Turnbull revealed in his appearance on the ABC's Q&A program on Thursday night.

But the senior minister - who was one of Mr Turnbull's key protectors before throwing his support behind Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton - admitted things had improved for the government just before the coup gathered steam.

"There's no question, in my mind, the government had worked very well as a team and that we had got ourselves back into a more competitive position than we had been," Senator Cormann told Sky News on Friday morning.

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"But that was before the 10 days of essentially that period [of leadership instability]. We clearly had some policy issues in relation to the National Energy Guarantee to work through. My expectation was that would happen ... but in the end that was not the way things played out."

Minister for Finance Mathias CormannCredit:Alex Ellinghausen

Senator Cormann blamed Mr Turnbull for calling a "surprise" leadership ballot on Tuesday August 21, essentially sealing his own fate by revealing a high degree of support (35 votes) for Mr Dutton.

That decision "crystallised a level of division in the Liberal party room that needed to be resolved", he said.

Senator Cormann, alongside Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield, publicly switched his support to Mr Dutton two days later.

Senator Cormann said he had never seen the advantageous internal polling to which Mr Turnbull referred on Q&A, despite his position as a senior minister in the government.

He also revealed he has not spoken with Mr Turnbull since the former prime minister left Parliament.

"No, we haven't spoken. We've had some WhatsApp exchanges, but we haven't spoken," he said.

The beneficiary of the leadership spill, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on Friday defended the right of the parliamentary Liberal Party to change leaders.

"We live in a parliamentary democracy, we don’t live in a presidential system. We live in a system where Australians all around the country elect their members of parliament and those members of parliament ... elect their leader," he said at a media event in Sydney, adding he did not support the spill motion that saw Mr Turnbull deposed.

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"The parliamentary Liberal Party formed a decision that they wanted to make a change and those who had advocated that had made points about needing to better connect with the values and the beliefs of Liberal and LNP members all around the country."

Victorian senator Jane Hume told Sky News the Liberal party room had not been briefed on internal polling suggesting the Coalition was travelling well in marginal seats under Mr Turnbull. She had no knowledge of it and did not know of any colleagues who did.

Senator Hume did not deny suggestions that if the polling was correct, the party made a mistake in changing leaders.

"Whether it was or whether it wasn’t [a mistake]... there’s no point appealing to the past," she said.

"Our job now is to look to the future and make sure we maintain that very strong economy, that we continue with the reform of the Turnbull government whether it be in childcare, media [or] education."

Senator Hume was one of 43 Liberal MPs who signed a petition in August urging Mr Turnbull to call a leadership spill. She supported Mr Dutton in the second round of votes in which Mr Morrison was elected prime minister.

Despite having called for a leadership spill, Senator Hume said the government had been "tracking quite well" under Mr Turnbull.

"I don’t think the Newspolls [putting Labor clearly in front] were entirely reflective of what was going on on the ground," she said, adding that the Turnbull administration's record of strong economic growth, job creation and less welfare dependency "were beginning to play out in the polls".

Speaking in Perth, Labor leader Bill Shorten said Australians were "sick and tired of disunity on either side of politics at the national level".

"We are not divided, the government is divided. We are stable, they are not," he said.

"We learnt our lesson and we’ve put in place rules that can make sure what happened in the Liberal [Party], their ongoing internal argument, cannot happen in our party."

Mr Turnbull used his first major media appearance since leaving the top job to point the finger directly at ministers who instigated and supported the insurgency against his leadership.